She started off by asking if I was the millionaire she'd been looking for. "I live in a council flat, it's 3pm, I'm at home and still in my pyjama's."

I then explained that I don't support charities that beg on behalf of disabled people, I'm much more in favour of rights.

Apparently if she wasn't scrounging at my door "The Blind" wouldn't have 'the right' to work in Sainsbury's or Asda because without her begging "The Blind" wouldn't have "braille tills and stuff" so "The blind" would have to sit at home all day. "And that's not fair or right, is it?"

She'd not heard of Access to Work and didn't believe me that it existed.

She then proceeded to ask about my impairment, and then informed me that "you'll do fine with your pretty face..." Nice to know. I'll remember that next time I can't get somewhere I want to go. "But I'm pretty!" I shall shout, and all access barriers shall melt away before me.

So that's why "The Blind" need her begging on their behalf? Because they're not pretty enough? Why is she begging for money for equipment then? Access to Work could fund that, so, surely, she should be begging to make "The Blind" more pretty to make them more employable? "Pah to having access to documents in braille. What you really need is braces to make your grin less toothy then people will be falling over themselves to employ you."

16 May 2005

Today marks the 10 year anniversary of my having left school.

Sadly I have no Romy and Michele-esque reunion to attend. Actually, not sadly at all as no-one I know from school lives in London so we wouldn't be able to have a road-trip with cool 80's music. Of course, it was during the 90's I went to secondary school, so a road trip with a Romy and Michele-esque 80's soundtrack would be badly misplaced. I could go to a primary school reunion with an 80's soundtrack... but that 10 year departure milestone is way past. And why would I want to see anyone from primary school anyway?

My soundtrack for a journey to a high school reunion would have to basically just be The Cranberries album 'No Need To Argue,' with a few tracks from Nirvana's 'Nevermind' and perhaps 'Ice Ice Baby' to acknowledge my first couple of years at secondary school. What a trendy and hip kid I was.

05 May 2005

"Grime, stains and limescale"

On the front of a bottle of Cillit Bang, they're the things it claims it can tackle. And it does pretty well, especially on rust stains, which I had to try and remove from my kitchen sink after an incident with a rusty-bottomed saucepan (I bought a full-length mirror to check if it was contagious seeing as how I'm apparently a "wheelchair person", rust could prove problematic). Nothing else worked. I even tried leaving bleach in there for days, and all that happened was my previously silver sink turned slightly white.

I've found Cillit Bang's weakness. Melted cheese. Will not shift it (though will stain the cheese pink if you're looking for novel ideas for how to make your buffet that bit special).

My project for this week has basically been clearing up the detritus after an incident involving an exploding toasted cheese sandwich on Monday. That'll teach me to leave cooking food unattended while I go to answer the phone. Or perhaps more importantly it'll teach me never to do that again. I always thought the phrase "that'll teach you" was lacking in some explanatory notes.

Of course, while the sandwich toaster was still hot, cleaning up the mess on it and the surrounding area wasn't possible - I'm already bearing one burn on my hand from stupidly touching one of its hotplates whilst the plate was, well, hot... I didn't need to add to that. That was one lesson I'd already learned. But, of course, as the toaster cooled, so did the cheese. And it became hard (oo er).

I quickly decided that the picking at the cheese with my fingernails was not an option that was going to work. Why? Because as tiny as my hands are, I can't actually fit my fingers inside the hinges of the toaster where most of the cheese resides. The attack needed to be chemical...

"Cillit Bang!" I thought. "After all, it cleaned up rust, surely it can dissolve away a bit of molten Emmental."

Nope. Apparently its grease dissolving powers do not stretch as far as the fat in cheese. Which now makes me worry how my body copes with digesting it. Or... maybe I should try throwing up on the sandwich toaster and letting my stomach acids have a crack at removing the cheese that Cillit Bang just can't handle.

And being a sucker for a quality advertising campaign, currently vomiting for me shouldn't be difficult. I really believed that Cillit Bang was a miracle cleaning product that could make my kitchen shine (and remove exploded cheese), but this week I've fallen for an advertising campaign that didn't require any leap of faith at all. This week I fell for the "buy this product and you'll get something shiny" approach.

Yup, on Tuesday in Sainsbury's (no longer my local Sainsbury's, but still my preferred... and nothing to do with the fact that I hope I might bump into Sharleen Spiteri in there again) I found myself knowingly buying a breakfast cereal containing an ingredient to which I am allergic, just because I wanted the DVD that came free with it. Yup, I'm that much of a sucker.

A friend of mine came over to strip this afternoon (wallpaper, people, please... minds out of the gutter. My mother reads this) and she wasn't at all surprised by my purchase of poisonous substances. She was however shocked and appalled that I'd bought poisonous substances made by an unethical company ergo I couldn't offload a box of fruity flakes (DVD removed, obviously) onto her.

Anyone wanna sleep over just so I can make them breakfast? I have surplus cereal. Toasted cheese sandwiches however are not on the menu.